An Unlikely Father

Wait a minute, a voice inside her head cautioned. What are you doing? A woman who’s having a… A woman who’s pregnant isn’t supposed to drink alcohol. Isn’t that what you’ve heard? Isn’t that why you’ve always pitied those poor females in the heat of summer who are sweating for two without benefit of a little cold fermented malt grain?

Slowly, certainly reluctantly, Helen lowered the bottle back into the cooler.

“What’s the matter?” Donny asked. “It’s close enough to noon, even for you.”

She wiped her wet hand along her shorts. “It’s not that. I just changed my mind.”

“Suit yourself.” He held up a roll of sandpaper. “Anyway, if you’re sticking around for a while, you might as well tear off a piece and start to work on the deck rail.”

She walked closer to the boat, but didn’t reach for the sandpaper. “Donny, I have to tell you something.”

He set down the roll and went back to work. “Okay, go ahead.”

She watched him a moment longer, listened to the sound of the rough-grained paper on the already smooth teakwood. For a minute, her skin tingled as if he were abrading her body instead of the sailboat. She rubbed her arms briskly. “Donny?”

He glanced up, squinted, returned his attention to the task. “What?”

“I’m pregnant.”

He stopped sanding. Her heart skipped a beat. For a few torturous seconds, he glared at her over Donovan’s Dawn with extraordinarily wide eyes, and Helen waited for his next words to restart her breathing.

He dropped the paper and planted his elbows on the railing. “What did you say?”

“I just found out yesterday. I took one of those tests. It was positive.”

He shook his head as if denying it would make it so. “That’s impossible.”

“No, only nearly impossible. Anyway, remember Friday night two weeks ago after we… Well, didn’t you say that something didn’t seem right, that maybe there was something wrong with the condom?”

“Oh, hell, that was just talk. Besides, it was after your friend’s engagement party. We were too juiced to know what we were doing.”

She felt the grip of shame in the tightening of her stomach muscles. The reminder of her overindulgence at Claire’s party was still enough to make her cringe in mortification. She was too old to excuse such irresponsible behavior anymore. Getting drunk and stupid was just, well, stupid.

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” she said. “I’m pregnant and that’s a fact.”

At least he didn’t argue the indisputable. He simply draped his hands over the side of Donovan’s Dawn and mumbled something. She thought she heard the word damn.

“What are you going to do?” he asked after a moment.

The wording of his question stunned her since it seemed as if he’d completely left himself out of assuming any responsibility. By asking her what she was going to do he was, in effect, telling her to do something.

She fought an escalating anger. Finn always told her she tended to act without thinking, to strike without having a justifiable target. She wasn’t going to do that, this time. She’d just dropped a bomb on Donny’s plans, on their plans together. He had a right to be defensive, confused.

“My first thought was to tell you,” she said calmly. “You’re the father, so obviously you have a stake in what happens with this ba…pregnancy.” She looked into his eyes and spoke with clear intent. “What do you think we should do?”

“Well, hell, I don’t know.” He rubbed his hand along the railing of the sailboat. His touch seemed gentle, caressing, even more than when he made love to her. “We have plans, Helen. When I got the boat done, we were going to take her around the Keys, sail all the way to the Turks and Caicos Islands, just you and me.”

“Plans can change, Donny. Life happens.” She’d never told him that his idea had been impractical from the start, anyway. Maybe deep down she’d hoped they could sail away just the two of them, but she knew it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe some people believed in fantasies, but not Helen Sweeney.

Donny took a long swallow of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The eyes that focused on hers were cold and distant. So were his words. “I don’t know, Helen. I’m forty-two years old. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea of a kid and a mortgage and a college savings account.”

Her eyes burned and Helen cursed her frailty. She wasn’t going to cry. “I know it’s a shock, Donny. It is for me, too. I still can’t believe it. But it’s happened, and we have to…” Her voice hitched. Damn. She couldn’t go on, so she sat on the cooler, dangled her hands between her knees and took a deep breath.

At least a minute passed, the longest minute of Helen’s life, until Donny came around the boat and stood in front of her. When he laid a hand on her shoulder, she brushed at a stubborn tear and looked up at him.

“It’ll be all right, Helen,” he said. “You tell me what you want, and we’ll make it work. If you want to go through with this, have the kid, I’ll stand by you. If you decide on a different course, I’ll be there for that, too.”

Her body went limp with relief. She covered the hand that still curled over her shoulder. “We don’t have to get married,” she said. “It’s enough to know that you’ll be here.”

“Sure. Don’t worry about me. You’ve got more important things to think about. We’ll still sail the boat. It may just take a little longer than we’d planned.” He crouched down in front of her and took her hands. “So, you’re going to have it? That’s what you want?”

Her lips quivered. Stupid hot tears spilled down her cheeks faster than she could wipe them away. But it was okay. They were tears of gratitude. For the first time, she allowed herself to think of the little seed growing inside her as a human being, not a condition.

Donny smiled. “I guess that’s my answer.” He stood up. “You go on home now. Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

She let him pull her up from the cooler. “I’m fine,” she said. “In fact, I’m better than fine.”

“Atta girl.” He turned her around and nudged her toward the Lionheart. “I know you’ve got a charter in the morning, but are you coming back tonight for the first set, at least?”

She smiled over her shoulder. “I’ll be here.”

She felt the warmth of his gaze as she left him and climbed the steps to the entrance to the bar. Everything was going to be okay. She held that thought all afternoon as she prepared for Friday’s trip into the Gulf. She believed it as she drove back into town that night. Her confidence grew with each breath until she arrived at the Lionheart at nine o’clock and realized that only a few cars sat outside, far fewer than normal. She didn’t really worry until she parked a block away from the pub and walked to the front door. The sandwich sign was no longer sitting by the entrance. That could only mean one thing. The great Donovan Jax was no longer playing at the Lionheart Pub.

“I DON’T KNOW MUCH, Helen,” the owner of the Lionheart said a few minutes later when she sat at the bar, nursing a Coke.

“He just left without any explanation?” she asked.

“Yeah, well, he said there was an emergency. He apologized for leaving me with no entertainment, packed his bags and took off.”

There was an emergency, all right. Someone without a backbone was about to become a father. “I suppose this is pointless to ask, Stan, but did he leave a forwarding address?”

Stan shook his head slowly while wiping his perfectly clean bar. “Sorry, Helen. I think it’s lousy of him to walk out without letting you know.”

She swallowed the rest of her drink and slid the glass across the bar. “Don’t waste your sympathy on me. Donny and I weren’t getting along, anyway. I was about to end it. Probably would have tonight if he hadn’t bolted.”

Stan draped the damp rag over the sink behind the bar. “Maybe he sensed that and left before you broke his heart.”

Helen got down from the stool. “Right. I have to get up early, so I’m calling it a night.” She headed for the door, but stopped and turned around. “One more thing…”

“What’s that?”

“Donovan’s Dawn. I noticed the sailboat is still in the vacant lot. Did Donny say anything about it to you?”

“Yeah, he did. Said he’d send a mover to pick it up as soon as he could. I expect in the next week or so. I can keep a watch out there. You want me to try and get a location where the boat’s going?”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.” She walked out onto the porch and paused in the overhead light. Knowing where Donny went really wasn’t important. Everything had changed in the last few minutes, and once again Helen had to face a grim reality. Planning a future with Donny had been a ridiculous dream, anyway, and was best ended quickly. Now, without Donny’s support, Helen knew she couldn’t raise a kid and keep the Finn Catcher going and take care of Finn. She barely made enough money to keep her family going as it was, and she couldn’t do any more. So this little bean inside her belly was the sacrifice she’d have to make.

She went down the steps, but stopped at the street. So, if this was her decision, why the hell had she ordered a Coke? She could be in the Lionheart right now, tossing back Wild Turkeys like there was no tomorrow. But she’d ordered a damn Coke.